Life — September 28, 1911 — page 8: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This is an advertisement for Packard Motor Car Company of Detroit, not satirical content. It explains the company's pricing structure for bulk truck orders. The ad announces a "sliding scale" discount system: single truck orders maintain list prices ($3,400 for 3-ton chassis, $2,800 for 1½-ton), but quantity purchases receive progressive price reductions calculated by multiplying the number of trucks ordered by .015. The example shows ten 3-ton chassis at $34,000 total, with a $10 reduction per truck, yielding $3,349 each. The system applies uniformly to orders of 2-50 trucks (the maximum discount threshold). Notably, the reductions apply to chassis only, not body prices, which remain fixed regardless of order size.